Lino

[Norm]

I live in a former council house which has the proper thick lino in the kitchen. Its the stuff they put on with glue and hot air guns, not the cheaper thin lino.

My problem is that I cannot get it clean at all. I have a steam cleaner and the only way to remove all the marks on the floor is to do the entire floor with the small brush nozzle on the steamer which takes about 2 days none stop. I have tried elbow grease and still it is soooooo hard to get clean. When, eventually I do get it clean and its walked on within a few days its back to square one. It seems to have lost its stain resistance if you know what I mean and is Matt to look at with absolutely no shine. I am a cleaner at school and we have a product called Carefree Stripper and Carefree Atternum (?) Would this be suitable for my floors at home? Or can anyone suggest a way of getting the floor clean again and it remaining that way with some kind of sealer?

Thanks for your help folks

Simon I am in the UK so if you are not, your products may not be available here

[sijka]

I would go to a rental store and rent a floor stripper. Get the small one (about 12" diameter) They have the scouring pads to purchase. This plus a stripper product will clean up your floors great. Leave the product on for a few minutes before you use the scrubber-it'll come off easier. You might want to have a wet/dry vac to vacuum up the residue. When done rinse several times. Put on a GOOD wax that is for linoleum-you might check into janitorial supply places.

Lots of work ---ONCE!!!!

[Norm]

Thank you my friend I appreciate your help

Regards

Simon

[Frogleg]

I thought linoleum was a really old-fashioned floor covering, but a brief Google shows me to be wrong. This site has care/cleaning instructions:

and Armstrong has offices in the UK.

I think you are correct that some sort of sealing product is called for after cleaning.

[Vox Humana]

I don't think you are wrong. Linoleum is an old product that has returned to be a luxury item.

[Frogleg]

No kidding? I'm old enough to speak of "linoleum" when I mean "vinyl floor covering" but can see no particular advantage of some porous combination of linseed oil and fillers. Seems a lot like "oilcloth" which I believe was an early attempt at waterproofing cloth. (A similar product appears to now be manufactured with a vinyl coating.)

Does "luxury" mean "not durable enough to keep clean without armies of skivies?" Phoo!

[Dawn]

As a young girl I used to live in a council house and I well remember the old lino floors and the work they made for my Mum. The floors were normally a dull red. Sometimes I would come home from playing to find the kitchen door locked and Mum would shout: " Come around the back way, I've just done the floor " I never thought about what she'd 'done' to it, I only knew it couldn't be walked on for a while and it would be shiny and clean for a day or so. It was always shiny under the table but not where people walked. Mum decided she wanted the new vinyl tiles and Dad had terrible trouble getting up the lino. It was such a hard job that after he did the kitchen he wouldn't do any more removing of lino and left down the lino in the outside toilet and it stayed down until the toilet was demolished. He painted that floor once a year, usually that same red colour which seemed to be a council standard. Anyway I asked Mum how she used to treat the lino ( not that the result is much good as the floor was as I said, soon dull) On hands and knees She used to strip it with Turps and where necessary with a steel-type pad, wash and dry then coat with a cloth covered in liquid wax and finally when dry, she'd buff it. Then we'd walk on it :)

[Wayne Boatwright]

Dawn wrote in news: [e-mail]:

You're quite right that linoleum maintenance is labor intensive. When I was growing up in the '50s we lived in a house where the kitchen and bathrooms had linoleum on the floors, wainscotings, and counters. Luckily, my parents could easily afford to have it maintained by professionals, and twice a year they would strip it and apply numerous coats of paste wax interspersed with power buffings. Treated this way, the shine lasted quite a long time and the linoleum was quite durable.

Wayne